Armor is a category of items that provide players and certain mobs with varying levels of protection from common damage types, and appear graphically on the wearer. These items include several different classes of helmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots, which can each be placed in designated armor slots of a player's inventory for use.

It takes 24 units of a given material to make a full set of armor. Chain armor cannot be crafted.

Armor can be repaired by placing two pieces of the same type (e.g., iron helmets) in a crafting grid. The resulting item will have 5% more durability left than the original items combined, but any enchantments will be lost. Repairing armor with an anvil will preserve and combine the enchantments. Chain armor can be repaired with anvils by combining iron ingots with it.

Zombies and skeletons that spawn with armor have a small chance of dropping their armor when killed by the player. Zombies, skeletons, zombie pigmen and wither skeletons upon death will always drop armor that they picked up and equipped.

Chestplates provide the most protection per unit of material, followed by leggings. For leather, iron, and diamond armor, boots are more efficient than helmets, but for chain and gold armor, the helmets are more efficient. However, boots are always the most durable.

Pumpkins can be worn as a helmet. This will not provide any protection, and it will partially block the player's view, but it does prevent endermen from becoming aggressive when players look at them.
Mob heads can also be worn as a helmet. They cut a player's detection range by 50% for the corresponding mob type. This bonus stacks with potions of invisibility and sneaking.

Elytra can be worn as a chestplate. Like pumpkins they do not provide any defense, but they do allow the player to glide through the air.

Whenever a piece of armor absorbs damage for the player, the armor itself is damaged, reducing its durability. After taking enough damage, the armor piece is destroyed.

Note that if the damage is absorbed not by the armor itself but by a protection enchantment of the armor, the armor is not damaged. Enchantments can also reduce damage that armor normally does not reduce.

Armor defense points are controlled by an attribute, generic.armor. The player's current protection level is represented visually by the armor bar. The armor meter is affected by the particular pieces that are worn as well as the tier of the armor. The following table shows the amount of defense points added by default by each individual piece of armor, as well as the total points added by a full set of armor for each material.

Broken down, this means that each armor point gives 4% maximum damage reduction against an incoming attack. Without toughness, this max damage reduction is lessened by 2% for each hit point of the incoming attack. 1 piece of diamond armor, which grants +2 toughness to the player, decreases the defense reduction value for each hit point to 1.6%, 2 diamond pieces decreases it to 4⁄3% (about 1.3333%), 3 decreases it to 8⁄7% (about 1.1428%) and 4 decreases it to 1%. The exact formula for the defense reduction in percent is defenseReductionInPercent =
damage * 4 / ( toughness / 4 + 2 ).

Simply put, as toughness increases, the amount of defense reduction done by high-damaging attacks is diminished, and as toughness approaches a very high value (through commands), the defense reduction caused by high-damaging attacks becomes negligible. The final damage reduction value of the armor is capped at a minimum of 0.8% damage reduction per armor point, and to a maximum of 80% total. If armor is cheated in so that the min cap is larger than the max cap, the min cap will be ignored.

In tabular form (with a toughness of 0), damages are:

Armor

Attack damage

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

0

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

9.00

10.00

11.00

12.00

13.00

14.00

15.00

16.00

17.00

18.00

19.00

20.00

1

0.98

1.98

2.98

3.97

4.96

5.95

6.94

7.94

8.93

9.92

10.91

11.90

12.90

13.89

14.88

15.87

16.86

17.86

18.85

19.84

2

0.94

1.92

2.94

3.94

4.92

5.90

6.89

7.87

8.86

9.84

10.82

11.81

12.79

13.78

14.76

15.74

16.73

17.71

18.70

19.68

3

0.90

1.84

2.82

3.84

4.88

5.86

6.83

7.81

8.78

9.76

10.74

11.71

12.69

13.66

14.64

15.62

16.59

17.57

18.54

19.52

4

0.86

1.76

2.70

3.68

4.70

5.76

6.78

7.74

8.71

9.68

10.65

11.62

12.58

13.55

14.52

15.49

16.46

17.42

18.39

19.36

5

0.82

1.68

2.58

3.52

4.50

5.52

6.58

7.68

8.64

9.60

10.56

11.52

12.48

13.44

14.40

15.36

16.32

17.28

18.24

19.20

6

0.78

1.60

2.46

3.36

4.30

5.28

6.30

7.36

8.46

9.52

10.47

11.42

12.38

13.33

14.28

15.23

16.18

17.14

18.09

19.04

7

0.74

1.52

2.34

3.20

4.10

5.04

6.02

7.04

8.10

9.20

10.34

11.33

12.27

13.22

14.16

15.10

16.05

16.99

17.94

18.88

8

0.70

1.44

2.22

3.04

3.90

4.80

5.74

6.72

7.74

8.80

9.90

11.04

12.17

13.10

14.04

14.98

15.91

16.85

17.78

18.72

9

0.66

1.36

2.10

2.88

3.70

4.56

5.46

6.40

7.38

8.40

9.46

10.56

11.70

12.88

13.92

14.85

15.78

16.70

17.63

18.56

10

0.62

1.28

1.98

2.72

3.50

4.32

5.18

6.08

7.02

8.00

9.02

10.08

11.18

12.32

13.50

14.72

15.64

16.56

17.48

18.40

11

0.58

1.20

1.86

2.56

3.30

4.08

4.90

5.76

6.66

7.60

8.58

9.60

10.66

11.76

12.90

14.08

15.30

16.42

17.33

18.24

12

0.54

1.12

1.74

2.40

3.10

3.84

4.62

5.44

6.30

7.20

8.14

9.12

10.14

11.20

12.30

13.44

14.62

15.84

17.10

18.08

13

0.50

1.04

1.62

2.24

2.90

3.60

4.34

5.12

5.94

6.80

7.70

8.64

9.62

10.64

11.70

12.80

13.94

15.12

16.34

17.60

14

0.46

0.96

1.50

2.08

2.70

3.36

4.06

4.80

5.58

6.40

7.26

8.16

9.10

10.08

11.10

12.16

13.26

14.40

15.58

16.80

15

0.42

0.88

1.38

1.92

2.50

3.12

3.78

4.48

5.22

6.00

6.82

7.68

8.58

9.52

10.50

11.52

12.58

13.68

14.82

16.00

16

0.38

0.80

1.26

1.76

2.30

2.88

3.50

4.16

4.86

5.60

6.38

7.20

8.06

8.96

9.90

10.88

11.90

12.96

14.06

15.20

17

0.34

0.72

1.14

1.60

2.10

2.64

3.22

3.84

4.50

5.20

5.94

6.72

7.54

8.40

9.30

10.24

11.22

12.24

13.30

14.40

18

0.30

0.64

1.02

1.44

1.90

2.40

2.94

3.52

4.14

4.80

5.50

6.24

7.02

7.84

8.70

9.60

10.54

11.52

12.54

13.60

19

0.26

0.56

0.90

1.28

1.70

2.16

2.66

3.20

3.78

4.40

5.06

5.76

6.50

7.28

8.10

8.96

9.86

10.80

11.78

12.80

20

0.22

0.48

0.78

1.12

1.50

1.92

2.38

2.88

3.42

4.00

4.62

5.28

5.98

6.72

7.50

8.32

9.18

10.08

11.02

12.00

Note that these damage values will be lower if a player is wearing pieces of diamond armor or has toughness added to their armor through commands. Armor values of 16 and above are impossible to obtain without at least one piece of diamond armor, without using cheats.

Armor can be enchanted to provide various enchantments. Enchantments can provide more protection or allow armor to protect certain types of damage that armor doesn't normally protect against, such as fall damage or fire. Damage reduction from enchantments do not decrease the armor's durability. Armor enchantments do not appear on the armor bar.

An armor's material determines how enchantable it is. The higher a material's enchantability, the greater the chances of getting multiple and high-level enchantments (see enchantment mechanics for details).

As with several enchantments, several different levels of protection are possible. The maximum level of a protection enchantment is currently IV (4). Protection enchantments from multiple pieces of armor stack together, up to a calculated maximum.

Each protection enchantment protects against specific types of damage. The amount of damage reduction depends on the Enchantment Protection Factor (EPF) provided by that enchantment.

When a player or mob wearing armor is subjected to damage, the EPFs of all applicable enchantments are added together, capped at 20, and then damage is reduced as damage = damage * ( 1 - cappedEPF / 25 ), giving a maximum reduction of 80% at EPF 20.

Because of the caps in the calculation, it's possible to max out protection against specific types of damage with only three pieces of armor. For example, two pieces of armor with Blast Protection IV (EPF 8 each) and a single piece with Protection IV (EPF 4) would give a total EPF of 20 versus explosions. Any additional EPF would be wasted against explosions (but might be useful against other types of damage, if applicable).

If the damage is of a type that armor protects against normally, this reduction applies only to the damage that got through the armor.

It is possible using /give to obtain armor with an enchantment level higher than what is normally obtainable via normal survival. Using this method, a player could give themselves, for example, a full set of diamond armor with a Protection V enchantment on every piece. Following the algorithm above, we find that, since Protection V has an EPF of 5, the armor will exactly reach the maximum EPF of 20 for all types of damage. Any higher Protection enchantments could be used to allow the cap to be reached with only one enchantment, rather than having a full set of enchanted armor, but would be wasted if all pieces shared the same level enchantment.

Any hit from a damage source that can be blocked by armor will remove one point of durability from each piece of armor worn for every 4 () of incoming damage (rounded down, but never below 1). The following chart displays how many hits each piece of armor can endure.

The chart below shows the durability per unit of material for each piece of armor, compared to that of the boots. Note that the durability per unit does not depend on the tier of the armor.

Helmet

Chestplate

Leggings

Boots

Durability/Unit

68%

61%

66%

100%

This means that for the same number of leather/iron ingots/gold ingots/chain/diamond, boots can take 1.5 more damage than leggings. Thus, chestplate and leggings offer more defense points per unit, but have a less durability per unit.

Certain mobs can spawn equipped with random armor pieces. Some mobs also spawn with the ability to pick up armor on the ground and equip them. The probability of mobs spawning equipped with armor, whether the armor is enchanted, the level of enchantment of the armor, and how many pieces of armor a mob spawns with depend on the difficulty; if a mob spawns with armor, the tier of armor (leather, gold, etc.) has a fixed probability:

Armor Type

Chance

Leather

37.06%

Gold

48.73%

Chain

12.90%

Iron

1.27%

Diamond

0.04%

Protection provided by armor and armor enchantments works the same with mobs as it does with players.

All other mobs can be equipped via commands, although it will not be visible.

Helmets can protect mobs from burning in sunlight, depleting its durability as it absorbs the damage. Eventually, the helmet will lose all its durability and break. Pumpkins and mob heads also protect mobs from burning in sunlight.

Leather and diamond armor models were altered. Leather tunics have buttons and longer sleeves, and leather caps no longer have a central, narrow protrusion. Diamond chestplates have notches under the shoulders.

In other languages

Content is available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted.Minecraft content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of Mojang and its licensors. All rights reserved.
This site is a part of Curse, Inc. and is not affiliated with Mojang.